Oh Holy Night

"The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you." -- Werner Heisenberg

"If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God." -- Lord Kelvin

"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." -- Max Planck

"Those who say that the study of science makes a man an atheist must be rather silly. Something which is against natural laws seems to me rather out of the question because it would be a depressive idea about God. It would make God smaller than he must be assumed. When he stated that these laws hold, then they hold, and he wouldn’t make exceptions. This is too human an idea. Humans do such things, but not God." -- Max Born

"The world is rational... the order of the world reflects the order of the supreme mind governing it." -- Kurt Gödel

"An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God." -- Srinivasa Ramanujam

"My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being...When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups...I want to speak to their souls." -- John Coltrane

"Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament." -- Igor Stravinsky

"It is because I am Beat, that is, I believe in beatitude and that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son to it… Who knows, but that the universe is not one vast sea of compassion actually, the veritable holy honey, beneath all this show of personality and cruelty?" -- Jack Kerouac

"A brilliant inspiration shows me that I have an unusual weapon at my disposal to help me penetrate to the core of reality: mysticism -- that is to say, the profound intuitive knowledge of what is, direct communication with the all, absolute vision by the grace of Truth, by the grace of God." -- Salvador Dali

And let us close with an image of another artist who attended mass almost daily:

Ok, here's a quote from a guy who thought that Christians were all Pagans:When a man reflects on these things, studies all these created beings, from the angels and spheres down to human beings and so on, and realizes the divine wisdom manifested in them all, his love for God will increase, his soul will thirst, his very flesh will yearn to love God. He will be filled with fear and trembling, as he becomes conscious of his lowly condition, poverty, and insignificance, and compares himself with any of the great and holy bodies; still more when he compares himself with any one of the pure forms that are incorporeal and have never had association with any corporeal substance. He will then realize that he is a vessel full of shame, dishonor, and reproach, empty and deficient.http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Maimonides

I would be willing to bet that the Coltrane quote came from the mid-60s, probably around '64 or thereabouts. This is the period where not only was his music increasingly spiritually inspired (he was attempting to mix spirituality with music), but was also out of this world. That is my favorite period of his work, especially 'A Love Supreme', 'Meditations', 'Interstellar Space' and to a lesser extent, 'Ascension'. Most people would hear these albums as just a bunch of noise, but to me they are masterpieces where it is clear that he was in a totally different reality and completely letting himself be free.

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